Molds (Fungi) Are Parasites That Live Off Our Nutrients

“Parasitic fungi absorb nutrients from the body fluids of its host, and may produce specialized hyphae called haustoria that penetrate a host’s cell wall and lie against the plasma membrane, where they can both absorb food.” – University of Las Vegas

One of the key factors in treating a toxic mold illness is understanding exactly what various molds do to our bodies and how they affect the various nutrients, minerals, and vitamins that we humans need for optimum health.

Many people falsely assume that human parasites only consist of the many different worms that inhabit our bodies and can cause disease like tapeworms, roundworms, and pinworms. But the facts are there are many molds that are also considered parasites.

What you need to understand is that there is a lot of bad information about mold illness and disease going around the internet and bad advice in the various Facebook groups. One of the most common that I have seen relates to people who claim that fungal infections or “mycoses” are very rare and that the molds found in our homes cannot infect and grow in our bodies. They say that only the toxins released from various molds can make you ill and cause disease.

For example, I recently had a debate with a man in a Toxic Mold Group on Facebook who claimed to be a mold specialist and nationally recognized expert in Indoor Environmental Quality with decades of experience. He basically said that fungal infections are rare and that the mold found in our homes cannot grow in and on your body. Here are some of his exact words:

Here are some of his exact words: “Contrary to Moe’s comments, mold is rarely an infection (or as he calls it, a parasite; also, mold infection is like a virus or bacteria infection. a parasite usually lives inside the body and effect is sub-clinical, aka no overt symptoms). When nearly all people on this group discuss mold, they discuss the effects of mold in the environment. That mold is growing in the building NOT in/on you. Infection is rare.”

But this is not true and I will prove it to you in this article. In fact, this advice is dangerous and can be deadly to those people out there who do have fungal infections and are not addressing these infections with the proper antifungals which is a very important aspect of a health protocol.

The simplest way to wrap your mind around this is by acknowledging that various molds are not only pathogens that release secondary metabolites called mycotoxins which can cause illness and disease, they are also considered parasites that live in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host’s expense.

This is exactly what mold does in the human body and the precise reason why many people who are sick from mold suffer from a multitude of vitamin and mineral deficiencies. It does the same thing to plants, trees, and other animals. Humans are no different. We are not immune from these molds growing in and on our bodies as they steal our vital nutrients and make us weak, ill and diseased.

It is well known in the science of mycology (mold science) that parasitic molds (fungi) cause a wide variety of diseases in plants, animals, and humans. Most of these parasitic molds are members of the class Fungi imperfecti, since they reproduce only asexually. The body of a parasitic fungus consists of branching multicellular filaments (hyphae) of the myceliumthat it uses to attach to the cell wall of its host to absorb its nutrients.

There are many different types of molds that live on and in the human body which classifies them as parasites. For example, one of the most common are those that cause athlete’s foot, ringworm and candida yeast infections are imperfect fungi.

Professor Neil Gow, from the University of Aberdeen had said that a million people die a year from fungal infections: “Most people know about mild fungal infections, but nobody’s ever died from athlete’s foot. However, a million people die a year from fungal infections and we need to understand these different types of infection and how to deal with them. It’s an underappreciated problem and it’s a very serious challenge in the parts of the world least equipped to deal with it.”

Are the molds that are found indoors parasitic?

Many of these same parasitic molds that are killing people cane be found within our homes and commercial buildings. Molds like aspergillus, penicillium, and cladosporium, to name a few.

The facts are that many of the parasitic molds (fungi) found indoors can cause fungal infections or “mycoses” for the inhabitants that breathe in the mold spores and mycotoxins and also through dermal and oral exposure. For example, one of the most common molds that are found indoors is aspergillus. Aspergillus is well known in the scientific community of mycology to produce numerous fungal infections under the general label of Aspergillosis.

This can cause numerous infection such a fungus ball in the lungs that may cause a cough, fever, repeated coughing up of blood, chest pain, and occasionally severe, even fatal, bleeding. Poorly controlled aspergillosis can disseminate through the blood stream to cause widespread organ damage. Symptoms include fever, chills, shock, delirium, seizures and blood clots. The person may develop kidney failure, liver failure (causing jaundice), and breathing difficulties. Death can occur quickly.

Aspergillosis of the ear canal causes itching and occasionally pain. Fluid draining overnight from the ear may leave a stain on the pillow. Aspergillosis of the sinuses causes a feeling of congestion and sometimes pain or discharge. It can extend beyond the sinuses. These infections occur more in immune compromised people, but they also infect people who do not have weakened immune systems.

How do these molds parasite off humans and steal our nutrients?

A fungus is a eukaryote that digests food externally and absorbs nutrients directly through its cell walls. The absorptive lifestyle of fungi is intimately associated with 2 important characteristics: production of spores and hypha (mycelial growth).

A spore is a tiny, usually haploid, cell that disperses the fungus to new habitats, usually by floating thru the air. The production of many tiny spores increases the chance that at least a few will fall onto a suitable food source, germinate, and start absorbing food, and then growing into a thread-like hypha. The hyphae, which develops right after spore germination, puts out powerful enzymes needed to digest food for the fungus.

The body of a fungus, made up of many hyphae, is called a mycelium. The mycelium is well-suited to absorbing food. It has a high surface-volume ration permitting the surface exposed to the external food source to absorb enough food to nourish the enclosed body of cytoplasm.

Parasitic fungi absorb nutrients from the body fluids of its host, and may produce specialized hyphae called haustoria that penetrate a host’s cell wall and lie against the plasma membrane, where they can both absorb food.

Mold Safe Solutions Conclusion

These parasites (fungi/molds) can feed on your flesh, blood, your vitamins, and minerals. They like almost all the same nutrients humans require for our health such as carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, proteins, phosphorus, sulfur, potassium, magnesium, iron, zinc, manganese, copper, calcium, molybdenum, and gallium are needed by most fungi for vigorous growth. Most fungi appear able to synthesize all other vitamins necessary for their growth and reproduction.(Encyclopedia Britannica)

They do so until your body and health starts to break down so they can kill and eat you. If you do not resupply the vital vitamins and nutrients these parasitic fungi are stealing from your body, you will eventually become deficient and illness and disease will set in.

In order to combat these nutrient robbers, you need to fill this deficiency by “supplementing” more of the vitamins and minerals you are lacking in so your body gets the vitamins and minerals it needs to function properly. If you ae functioning properly, you can get to work at restoring your health and getting your life back on track.

Part of this process involves killing the mold in your body. I know some people hate to hear these words “kill mold.” But the facts are if you do not kill the mold in your body, it will continue to reproduce, grow and multiply until it kills you.

Make no doubt about it. This is a fight for your health and life. A war being waged within your body and cells that you need to be an active participant in. If you do not fight and kill your foe, it will fight and kill you. These are the simple laws of war.

Fortunately, the weapons you need to fight with are not dangerous and most likely will not hurt you in the process. The I like to use in order to kill the parasitic mold in my family’s bodies are done with natural antifungals that have no to very little side effects such as oregano oil, grapefruit seed extract, garlic or garlicin, clove oil, cat’s claw, and MCT oil to name a few.

3 Comments

DEBbie
on March 18, 2017 at 6:32 pm

Would be interested in your thoughts on Breast Implant Illness and the association of the molds growing inside Saline implants that can repture and leak into our body. And what can we do to repair our bodies after Explant of these Toxic Killers
Respectfully
Debbie Flemming

I have written about moldy breast implants before, but I haven’t reported on why this is happening. My thoughts are that they are perfect breeding grounds for molds and bacterias to grow and thrive. The main reason is that anything foreign that is implanted into our body does not have the natural defenses and immune responses that will fight against these foreign invaders. Therefore they are perfect breeding grounds and hiding spots for pathogens such as mold. In addition, I believe they are being infected with microbes in the breast manufacturing plants as well since there is so little oversight.

In regards to repairing our bodies from these toxins, for your diet and supplements, eating a whole foods diet that is organic is crucial. You need to be eating a lot of greens and a lot of vegetables and also good proteins like grass fed beef, cage free eggs and chicken, Alaskan Salmon etc. You can even add some grass fed whey protein.

Natural antifungals are crucial. You can use grapeseed extract, oregano oil, clove oil, garlic or garlicin, MCT oil, back seed, and or cat’s claw to name a few. You can add MCT oil or coconut oil in an all natural shake. You will also want to be a binder like activated charcoal or clay at night before you go to bed to sweep out your system. Cholestyramine is simply not necessary if you are using charcoal. It works Perfect! Be sure to drink lots of clean non-tap water throughout the day.

It is also important to be taking good quality vitamins and minerals.

Our immune systems when working properly can normally take care of these fungi, but it can also become overburdened in healthy people if they are exposed to enough toxins. Remember that 80% or more of our immune system is in our gut, if you have fungi in there screwing up the balance, this can throw your immune system out of whack fast. Antifungals like I mentioned and charcoal will help clear out your gi tract and mold hiding there so you can restore your immune system.

Last but not least, I have found that oxygen supplementation through methods such as hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), can be very beneficial for people with various diseases, and illnesses such as mold toxicity and fungal infections.

Hyper-oxygenation of the blood and tissues through hyperbaric oxygen therapy acts through multiple modes of actions to positively affect healing and oxygenation of hypoxic tissues in a non-invasive intervention. HBOT is known to stimulate progenitor cells, effecting repair and regeneration of both hard and soft tissues. Infections in deep tissues and bone benefit from hyperbaric oxygen therapy through direct antibiotic action, or synergistically with other standard treatments. Inflammatory factors are suppressed with oxygen treatments aiding in the healing processes.

Hi Moe. Im not even sure where to start. Mold belongs in hell, not here. My 12 year old daughter and i lived in our apartment for almost 8 years befor i figured out it was mold that was making me so sick. I dont know exactly how long we had been inhaling and ingesting the mycotoxins, fungis and the toxic gas that the molds produce that were found in our apartment. I know for about the last 2 years my health has plummeted significantly. About 3 or 4 years ago i was diagnosed with Hashimotos hypothyroidism (befor that ive always been healthy). In November 2015 i went to the E.R. because my lower legs (mainly my right one) were swollen, beat red, hot to the touch, hard and hurt so bad i would just lay on my bed and cry. I will speed it up some now so irs not taking you a week to read all of this. 🙂 i was diagnosed with edema. Im having chronic fatigue, chronic cough, upset stomach every other day, i dont feel god at all. Made several trips to my pcp for breathing issues and that damn cough. In march 2016 i was hospitalized and later diagnosed as having “acute bronchitis” ok the cough will hang around a couple of weeks but ill get better. I saw specialist after specialist, i made several trips to the E.R. and not 1 doctor, not 1 specialist and not one E.R. doctor could figure out what was wrong with me, they thought they did and would meficate me with this or that but i NEVER felt better. I finally told my mom and my sister that i KNOW theres something wrong with me. It feels like my body is shutting down on me and i have no control over it. I knew it was NOT cancer but i did not have a clue of what it was. I pulled out a life insurance policy on myself, wrote up my will and took care of what i thought was inevidable. I had several upper respiratory infections on Dec 26, 2016 i was in the E.R. because once again…i could not breath. Dr diagnosed me with upper respiratory infection and sent me on my way with some “steroids”. On Dec 27th my central heat and air went out. I was informed by managment it would be clise to a month befor it would be fixed. I also have laryngitis at this point. A couple of weeks go by and its getting down to 30 degrees at night and im getting sicker but im so exhausted i dont have the strenghth to argue about no heat. So about the 17th of Jan i text the manager and told her exactly how i felt about no heat and being as sick as i was. I also text her and informed her that mold was beginning to grow in my apartment, that i was alergic to it and somebody needed to come clean it up. Finally Jan 23rd my heat was fixed but i was about as useless as they come because i was soooo sick at this point. On Jan 25th my mom came and took me to the E.R. i was eheezing very bad, coughing so hard i was throwing up my medications. Dr put me on a breathing treatment for 2 1/2 hours and my oxygen levels did not improve, so i was admitted. He kept asking me if i had asthma, then he believed i had a blood clot in my lung so he had a cat scan done on me, xrays too. Anyway 5 days go by, he comes to check on me and tells me o can go home now. In my discharge papers it stated that i was diagnosed with “chronic bronchitis” wich now is C.O.P.D. I am 46 years old and never smoked a day in my life! So i just a 10 month period i went from having “acute” to “chronic” bronchitis wich is now COPD. I had mentioned the mold to my dr and he wanted me to spit up some of the phlegm but i couldnt. I stayed with my mom for a week when i got out. Then went back to my apartment. Mold was growing up threw the linolium in the kirchen, it was growing threw the drywall on top of the paint in my bedroom. It was all over the windows, growing on the ledges, on the carpet. So i wrote the manager explaining this (she knows how sick ive been and knew i was hospitalized for a week as well). I ended up callibg in an enviromenral specialist on feb 23rd to test the mold. He did a swab test in the kitchen and did an air test in the bedroom, then did the air test outside about 5 feet from my front door. The walls in every room had a moisture content in them of 20% or higher. There were 3 different types of toxic molds found. In the bedroom the toxic spore count was 375% higher then it was outside. There was ulcladium, aspergillus, penecillium, and chladosporium found. When i researched it, my daughter and i vacated immediately. Left EVERYTHING behind except my purse and our kitty. Now over the last couple years im being medicated for hypothyroidism, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabeties (pill form twice a day) i also take wellbutrin and xanex (when i need to) i am reaching out to you in hopes you cab guide me in the direction of detoxing without harming myself due to the medications i am on. Im not sure how to detox my daughter either. I also feel as though its a very good possibility i have fungus in my lungs snd sinuses. When i went to see my pcp i shared with him what i had learned and ibstead of “TRYING” to help me get well, all he did was look at me with a grin on his face and says “OH SO YOU KNOW MORE THAN DOCTORS NOW”? I was floored and left there in tears. I get to see an alergist on mobday morning and i was also wondering if you could possibly suggest any and all test that i should request to be done? Im sorry this is so ling. I hope to hear from you soon. Yhank you for your time.